Police services offer endless career choices

Denise Deveau, For Postmedia News02.29.2012

Cpl. Stephanie Ashton works in the recruiting department for the RCMP. Ashton, photographed at the Vancouver, British Columbia RCMP headquarters Feb. 6, 2012, went from broadcast journalism to police work and loves her job.

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Derek Binnendyk says that since he was young he "had a real sense of truth and justice and a desire to help people."

Today the 28-year-old is an RCMP officer and ready to take on his first assignment. "It took a long time to commit to choosing the path," says the Red Deer native. "I used to be in retail. But the RCMP has such a long and rich history and I knew I could learn a lot. And there are so many things you can do across Canada or even around the world."

Stephanie Ashton, a corporal with the RCMP in Vancouver, is the perfect case in point. She applied to the RCMP after being a broadcast journalist covering the police beat. Now 16 years into her policing career, she says she has had eight different jobs.

"I've done police work on the road, been a school liaison officer, worked in sex crimes, domestic crimes and youth policing, and also major crimes," says the team leader, proactive recruiting, for the Pacific Region, BC and Yukon.

She has even had time to complete an undergraduate degree and has entered a master's degree program which is partially funded by the force. "It's great because you can work full time and go to school if you want to. And there is such a variety of jobs."

In all there are 150 official careers in the RCMP, from traffic analysis, municipal contract policing and integrated border integrity to forensics, emergency response, operational readiness and deportment. After the initial three years of assigned service the opportunities grow, since officers can then apply to work internationally at embassies or on UN missions.

Ashton reports that the hiring process is both long and challenging, but worth the effort. "On average it takes about a year to go through the recruiting and it's quite competitive. Usually nine or 10 out of every 100 people who write the exam will get in."

Candidates also have to go through extensive evaluations, ranging from physical fitness and behavioural assessments to psychometric and polygraph testing to verify application submission information. Security clearance checks are also conducted.

Basic requirements include Canadian citizenship, fluency in English or French, and a secondary school diploma or equivalent. You also have to be willing to relocate anywhere in Canada and have a valid Canadian driver's license. Minimum age for applying is 18.

All cadets go to the RCMP Academy, Depot Division in Regina for six months where they learn defence, firearms, drill, deportment, applied police sciences and other necessary skills.

Those interested in police work who prefer not to relocate across the country, can go the more "local" route by applying to a provincial or municipal police force. At the Surete du Quebec's Ecole nationale de police du Quebec in Nicolet, Quebec, for example, recruits finish their training after getting their three-year police technology diploma from one of 12 designated colleges in the province.

Sophie Levesque, a communications spokesperson, notes that competition can be just as fierce at the provincial level. "A lot of young people want to become police officers. I'd say of the 5,000 applicants who want to enter the college program each year, only about 20 per cent of those get in."

This year the training academy accepted 648 applicants from college programs (nine cohorts of 72 recruits), a number which can change depending on ministry needs. There recruits take 15 weeks of basic training where they learn firearms, emergency vehicle driving techniques and physical intervention techniques, among other exercises. The site also has an experiential learning police station school, where they can engage in simulations to test their ability to interact with people in different situations.

Once finished they are qualified patrollers. If they want to do something more specialized, they have to come back to do advanced training, Levesque says. Advanced training opportunities fall under three broad categories: patrolling, investigation and management.

Ashton admits that while getting into a police career isn't easy, she has never regretted her decision to leave journalism to join the RCMP. "It's the variety that I like most. Every day is different so you never know what's going to happen when you start that shift. I still love to put on the uniform and tell people about what I do."

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